


The Best Birthday Present

by dedicatedfollower467



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Retail, Birthday, Bittersweet, Canon-typical swearing, Children, Cute Kids, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, Sibling Bonding, Time Travel, arts and crafts, dubiously canon compliant, idek what to tag this with?, it's cute but it's also sad?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:36:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22675720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedicatedfollower467/pseuds/dedicatedfollower467
Summary: It's Dave's birthday, and he has had just theshittiestday.But there's one more surprise waiting for him at home. Thankfully, it's a good one.
Relationships: Dirk's Bro | Alpha Dave Strider & Dirk Strider
Comments: 14
Kudos: 85





	The Best Birthday Present

**Author's Note:**

> I tagged this as "Dubiously Canon Compliant" because... there's nothing that says this _couldn't_ have happened.
> 
> Also, hi, hello, there is a canon-typical amount of swearing in this fic, which is to say, a lot of swearing. I'm still rating it G, because if you've read Homestuck, _you've been exposed to more than a few fucking swears already._

Dave is having an absolutely _shitty_ day.

First, his alarm hadn’t gone off this morning when it was supposed to, which yeah, okay, meant he got to sleep in, but also meant he had to skip breakfast to get to the bus in time to get to work, and on top of that, he _still_ missed the bus, and then the next bus was _late_ by almost fifteen minutes, and then got delayed by some kind of horrible accident on the road. By the time he finally made it to his shift he was almost an hour and a half late, and his supervisor chewed him out in front of all the other employees _and_ the customers.

And of course the shift _itself_ was a fucking nightmare, because three _separate_ kids vomited in the store because it’s the middle of fucking flu season and anti-vaxxer moms are out here bringing their disease-ridden walking plague incubators out into public, which in Dave’s opinion should be fucking _illegal_ , and _he’d_ been the one assigned to clean that shit up all three times.

On his lunch break (which he’d ended up going to almost forty minutes late, because he’d been cleaning up baby puke and then Karen had taken _her_ break, which meant he couldn’t take his until she came back) the vending machine in the break room ate Dave’s dollar bill without dropping the fucking chips, and when he’d slammed it trying to get the bag to fall, he’d almost broken his fingers because he hit it wrong.

Then that afternoon when he had to run cash register some bitch in a blonde wig had tried to slip him a counterfeit Bennie, and then fucking blown up on him when he’d called her on it. Because Dave’s _Dave_ , he wasn’t going to take that shit lying down, so he’d yelled back, but then his manager had come over and gotten on his case about his attitude with the customers and bought the lady’s weak-ass excuse that she hadn’t _known_ it was a fake and didn’t call the fucking cops on her.

And when his shift was over, his manager fucking _fired_ him. Here’s the fucking pink slip, leave the uniform shirt here, I don’t care that you didn’t bring a change of clothes, Dave, walk home half naked for all I care, I never want to see your face around here again. So he’d had to take the bus home wearing just his jacket over his chest, which was scratchy and uncomfortable.

Now, he’s standing here at the mailbox, having opened a letter from one of the agents he’d tried to get, telling him, sorry, Mr. Slider, not interested in workshopping this dumb Sweet Brother and Hello Jeffrey movie, you clearly don’t understand Hollywood, kid, doesn’t matter how fucking popular your webcomic is, don’t quit your day job. Which he can’t, because he just got fucking _fired_ from it.

Dave is trying very hard not to cry tears of frustration right now.

This is the _worst_ fucking birthday he’s _ever_ fucking had.

Dave slams open the door to his apartment, stomps angrily down the dark hallway, fumbling with his key, and then his foot _crunches_ on something.

“Son of a _fucking bitch_ ,” Dave snarls. What the _fuck_ did he just step on?

He turns, flips the lightswitch, and looks down at the mess in front of him.

It’s a cardboard box, one side completely smashed thanks to his clumsy fucking feet. It appears to be poorly wrapped in butcher paper which has been covered with simple shapes drawn with crayon, although to be fair to whoever wrapped it, it might have looked a bit nicer before Dave stuck his foot in it.

Dave feels a fucking chill go up his spine, looking at it. He doesn’t have any roommates, and he _definitely_ locked the apartment on his way out, so _how the fuck did it get in here?_

Fuck, if somebody broke in…

Quickly, Dave scans through his apartment, looking to see if anything has been stolen. A cursory glance tells him his computers, TV, Xbox, and sound equipment are all still in here, which makes him feel a little less paranoid, but a second pass shows him that all of his windows are closed and locked from the inside.

Which makes this the weirdest locked-room mystery he’s ever heard of. Who breaks into someone’s apartment without a trace in order to _leave_ something?

For half a second, Dave considers calling Doc English or Rose. Maybe one of them would have a clue about what the _fuck_ is going on here.

Then he wonders if maybe the box itself will hold some answers.

Cautiously, desperately hoping it’s not filled with anthrax or a bomb, Dave picks up and examines the package.

The designs on the butcher paper are simple - circles and triangles in repeating patterns - and look as though they’ve been drawn with the artless hands of a small child. Several strips of paper have been taped to the top of the box with their ends hanging loosely, for no apparent reason that Dave can see.

Well. It’s time to bite the bullet.

Dave rips the paper covering and lifts the top of the box, not at all sure what he’s expecting to find inside.

It’s a puppet.

More specifically, it’s a little sock puppet, made from what has to be the tiniest fucking sock Dave’s ever seen. It’s a sock for _ants_ is what it is. Or okay, maybe for a toddler, Dave can concede that possibility. The point is, it’s so small that Dave would be lucky if he could get two fingers in it, much less his whole hand.

The sock itself is white, but looks to have been sloppily colored red with some kind of marker. Its “face” is still white, however, and the creator has taken a black marker to give it a pair of large, misshapen eyes, scribbled-on black hair, and what Dave _thinks_ is supposed to be a beard around where a very small hand would have formed a mouth.

There’s no doubt about it.

It’s Sweet Bro.

Dave chuckles to himself and lifts the limp little thing out of its box, just as confused about how it _got_ here and who could have made it as he was before he opened it, but a hell of a lot less worried about the sender making some kind of attempt on his life, now.

There’s a note folded underneath the puppet, at the bottom of the box. Dave picks it up, unfolds it, and takes in a sharp breath.

There are only four words on the piece of paper, written in crayon with large letters that have clearly been _painstakingly_ applied to the paper. Yes, there’s a certain clumsiness of line and lopsidedness to the loops, which point to the age of the writer being very young indeed, but there are none of the stereotypical backwards letters or humorous homophonic misspellings one might otherwise expect from a little kid.

Dave feels his eyes start to well up with tears as he stares down at that name.

Fuck.

Dave still has no idea how the box got into his apartment. He doesn’t know how a kid from four hundred years in the future managed to send this present back to _his_ time. As far as he’s concerned this is a minor fucking miracle.

All Dave knows is he’s gonna treasure this beautiful goddamn puppet for as long as he lives.

And that, when the time comes, he’s gonna make _damn_ sure there’s crayons in this apartment.

**Author's Note:**

> When the Batterwitch's Sendificator hits the markets, suddenly everything will make much more sense to Dave.
> 
> Also, I like to think this isn't the last birthday present Dave gets from his little bro.


End file.
